Excerpt: Special Trust and Confidence (1956 Proceedings)

This html article is produced from an uncorrected text file through optical character recognition. Prior to 1940 articles all text has been corrected, but from 1940 to the present most still remain uncorrected.  Artifacts of the scans are misspellings, out-of-context footnotes and sidebars, and other inconsistencies.  Adjacent to each text file is a PDF of the article, which accurately and fully conveys the content as it appeared in the issue.  The uncorrected text files have been included to enhance the searchability of our content, on our site and in search engines, for our membership, the research community and media organizations. We are working now to provide clean text files for the entire collection.

Written more than 150 years ago, Clausewitz’s observa­tion has been revalidated time and again. “I felt a flash of panic,” wrote rifleman Jack Smith (now ABC News White House correspondent) of his reaction when his com­pany executive officer was gunned down in a North Viet­namese Army ambush in the la Drang valley in November 1966. “I had been assuming he would get us out of this. Enlisted men may scoff at officers back in the billets, but when the fighting begins, men automatically become very dependent upon them.”

It cannot be quantified, but the character and integrity of the officer corps is no small thing. Much more influen­tial than arms and equipment, it determines success and failure on the battlefield.

That’s why the drug-testing procedures are so insidious. Instead of promoting “special trust and confidence” they deny it. They automatically classify all officers as sus­pected drug users, and also assume automatically that all officers are cheats who must be monitored to keep them from giving false samples. This denies the character and integrity of the officer corps and dangerously undermines military discipline by sending a message to the “other ranks” that their superiors are in fact not superior at all.

“If the American people cannot trust our word, if they cannot rely on our conduct, we can hardly expect them to trust us with the lives of their sons and daughters,” Gen­eral Rogers wrote in 1977. Today, it is not the American people who “cannot trust our word” and “cannot rely on our conduct.” It is the military establishment itself. Tim­idly following the edicts of Department of Defense (DoD) functionaries who have no feel for—and certainly no re­

sponsibility for—the battlefield performance of officers, generals and admirals lead the way in surrendering the integrity of the officer corps. At present, the only “special trust and confidence” is reposed primarily in the printouts of the drug-testing machines.

In fable, a small child had the wisdom to point out that the emperor had no clothes. In reality, it has taken a rela­tively low-ranking officer to point out that the offic^er corps is in danger of losing its soul. Not surprisingly’ Lieutenant Unger has a message that many prefer not to hear.

The most pathetic responses have come from office^rs trying to camouflage the surrender of their integrity by claiming they were merely setting the example. What they did not say—and what perhaps they could not admit to themselves—is that they have had no choice in the matter- If they did not “set the example” they would automati­cally join Lieutenant Unger in the dock.

Still other letters revealed how far the erosion has pr°' gressed. One officer wrote that next I’d want to elimina^te mandatory physical fitness testing and weapons qualifi^ca' tion. But for most of its existence the officer corps has believed that maintaining physical and technical prof"¹' ciency is an officer’s duty. Years ago, officers would have regarded mandatory testing as an insult—a reflection on their character.

Most disturbing of all were letters from enlisted person­nel who complained that their officers were not worthy ⁰ special trust. Whenever those whom the officer corps W*’ lead into battle question the integrity of their leaders, ^vVt are in big trouble. But in one respect that’s a self-inflicted

UNITED STATES NAVAL INSTITUTE PROCEEDINGS

Vol. No. 82, No. 5                                                               May, 1956                                     Whole No. 639

SPECIAL TRUST AND CONFIDENCE

By LIEUTENANT COLONEL R. D. HEINL, Jr., U. S. Marine Corps

IN A lower-deck poker game aboard ship, runs an old Navy story, which probably antedates the Tuscarora with her five decks and a glass bottom, a sailor had his hand called, announced that he had a winning hand, and threw in his cards, faces down. One of his mates remonstrated, “Let me see those cards.”

Replied the first sailor, “In the wardroom the officers don't look at each other’s hands.”

“Sure,” came the answer, “but them sonsabitches is gentlemen!”

* * *

The opening words in your com­mission as an officer in the Armed Forces avow that the President of the United States, no less, reposes “special trust and confidence” in you.

Today, however, that special trust and confidence in you as a comm¹⁵' sioned officer is seemingly confin^L'^L to the President alone.

In the 18th Century, pontificated Samuel Johnson, “An officer is mu^c more respected than any other m3'¹

^w°und. Those who wrote the rules for drug testing have ^Sa'd that the officers (and the noncommissioned officers) ^are no better than the “other ranks.” And who are the ^troops to dispute the wisdom of the “brass?”

We went through this once before, in the opening days jTthe Korean War—and we paid for it dearly. Evidently, ‘ke that war itself, the lesson has been forgotten. Korea ^c°rnbat veteran T. R. Fehrenbach describes how:

“In 1945 . . . the public demanded that the Army be changed to conform with decent, liberal society. The generals could have told them to go to hell and made it stick. A few heads would have rolled, a few stars ^would have been lost. But without acquiescence Con­gress could no more emasculate the Army than it could the nature of the State Department. . . . But the gener­is could not have retained their new popularity by an­tagonizing the public.”

The denouement came when this undisciplined Army ^Was committed to combat. It was suddenly relearned that ^0rders in combat

cannot be given by men who are some of the boys. Men willingly take orders to die only from those they ^are trained to regard as superior beings ... the infantry battlefield cannot be remade to the order of the prevail- ^lng midcentury opinion of American sociologists.”

Today’s generals and the admirals could have told the ⁰D drug functionaries to go to hell, as well. They could ^ave told them that random drug testing of its officers and ^commissioned officers in pursuit of a drug-free service

was not worth eroding the foundation of “special trust and confidence” upon which the entire structure of the armed forces was constructed. But they too would have risked antagonizing the public, embarked on an anti-drug cru­sade.

But unlike their Korean War counterparts, today’s gen­erals and admirals still have time to act. They should begin by scrapping the current drug-testing fiasco and adopt General Rogers’s 1977 letter of integrity as a blueprint for a self-policing officer corps:

“I see no need for officer codes or officer creeds. The standards are all there—in the oath of office, in the officer’s commission, in the tradition of our officer corps, and in that code of an honorable man: ‘I will not lie, cheat nor steal, nor tolerate one who does.’ The problem is not one of devising and posting new rules; the challenge is following the ones we have.”

That’s what special trust and confidence is all about. It’s not something that can be instilled by a drug-testing machine. It’s something the officer corps must do for it­self. It must once again become the conscience of the armed services.

A combat infantry veteran of the Korean and Vietnam Wars, Colonel Summers formerly held the General Douglas MacArthur Chair at the Army War College. Now editor of Vietnam magazine, he also writes a weekly column on political and military affairs for the Los Angeles Times Syndicate.

^ith.

benefit of fingerprints. Does ’ ^s know better?

Mie~^{a rna}i°^r Marine Corps base, ^{Jr car}, it’s not enough that you

^en y°u apply for post tags for

jj¹⁰ makes as little money.” Today, j ^are to believe a public opin- ₀* ^survey conducted by the Gallup [Sanization for the Department of . ^ense» an officer may well be less _^sPeeted than other men who as little money.

-p ⁿ board ships of the Military Sea ansportation Service (MSTS], your , ^S()nal check—the check signed Do °>^ne '^{n w}b°^m the President re- _Wj|^S.^es special trust and confidence— j_n ⁿeither be cashed nor accepted P^ent of charges. On at least bur- ^e MSTS transport, the dis- T_r. ^Sln8 office even refuses to accept Pri ^{C ers} Cheques unless finger- th₍ ^Uc<J by the individual presenting the'^{111 rVlost} civilian hotels will take ^lr chances on an officer, and

At

Vou

i_n ¹ y> as an officer, that you are y_0(J ^rec*- Instead you must produce _Sp_e^r Policy itself, which is then in- ^Ct<L'h—to verify your word—by

Admittedly, any of these things is, in itself, small—just like the cloud that was no bigger than a man’s hand. Or like the above-water frac­tion of an iceberg. But as long as things like this go on at all, we have a problem on our hands.

The crux of this problem ... is simply this: an alarming erosion of the status, privilege, and confidence heretofore reposed in the officer corps has taken place under our very eyes. This erosion has awak­ened widespread complaint, frustra­tion, and even bitterness, among of­ficers who have served any length of time. It has unquestionably discour­aged likely young men of high cali­ber from becoming regular officers and enlisted men, it has imposed serious handicaps on leadership of the most effective quality.

The Roots of the Problem

Much of the blame for this soured climate of attitude toward and among the officer corps can be at-

tributed to a half dozen principal causes. These are:

(1)     Egalitarianism on the national scene.

(2)     Continuing large size of the Armed Forces.

(3)     Lower caliber and easygoing indoctrination of young offi­cers.

(4)     Tendency of administrative thick-headedness to override individual discretion and ordi­nary common sense.

(5)     Side effects of the Universal Code of Military' Justice.

(6)     General relaxation of officer discipline and officer self­discipline.

Egalitarianism—A pervasive spirit of egalitarianism, abroad throughout the world, is nowhere stronger than here at home.

At naked fundamentals, egalitari­anism and the concept of an officer corps are irreconcilable. Egalitarian­ism attacks all distinctions, particu­larly distinctions of rank. Egalitarian­ism attempts to deny the underlying superior individual qualities of which rank is, or should be, the earned reward. Egalitarianism is the enemy of the special responsibilities and, even more so, of the special privileges of leaderships.

A military example of egalitarian­ism at work was the Army’s Doolit­tle Board of 1946, which, however well intended, spearheaded a grossly misdirected drive to com­mingle officers, on a footing of in­distinguishable equality, with the men they were supposed to lead.

The Russians, who had long since realized the folly of egalitarianism in a military organization, laughed at the Doolittle Board (and undoubt­edly did everything in their power to egg it on).

Continuing Large Size of the Armed Forces—The late Justice Brandeis knew what he was talking about when he inveighed against "the curse of Bigness.” One direct result of sheer size in today’s Armed Forces is that we are no longer “a band of brothers”; this of course stunts the mutual growth of “special trust and confidence” among offi­cers, particularly so between the higher administrative headquarters and the officers they administer.

Few strangers instinctively trust other strangers. And today more commissioned officers are on active duty in the four services than the total strength of the Armed Forces twetity years ago.

As long as we stay this large, maintenance of an elite officer corps, with corresponding status, ef­fectiveness, and mutual confidence, will be difficult.

Lower Caliber and Easygoing In­doctrination of Young Officers—A direct product of our having an offi­cer corps which is about the size of the entire British Army is that the large annual intake of new officers must represent, statistically, a dimi­nution of caliber and quality.

This requirement for officer quan­tity at the expense of officer quality can only result in lower standards throughout the officer corps. And officers with lower professional and individual standards receive—and what is much worse, accept— treatment unheard of in the service twenty years ago.

Administrative Thickheadedness vs. Individual Discretion—One hall­mark of a truly professional corps of officers is wide individual discretion to decide and act, on the basis of sound principles and common sense. In other words, the assump­tion that it doesn’t require a large, highly codified body of regulations to enable a trusted executive to rec­ognize and do what is right.

This assumption, once fundamen­tal in the service, now seems to go not only unheeded, but is ground underfoot in the mass of petty regu­lations which emanate from high levels and low. Hand in hand with this torrent of prescriptive proce­dures goes dangerous inflexibility. For example: did you know that the Department of Defense, no less, prescribes by written regulation the number of times a week garbage is to be collected from public quar­ters?                     .

The weight of monolithic, imper­sonal, over-detailed regulations, written and enforced by career ad­ministrators, does more to crush the exercise of individual discretion than any other factor in today’s Armed Services. Individual latitude to do what seems right is the hall­mark of “special trust and confi­dence.” Thus administrative trends throughout the Department of De­fense (often those imposed by that Department) wittingly or unwittingly are among the worst enemies of “special trust and confidence.”

Uniform Code of Military Jus­tice—UCMJ (correctly) has been damned right and damned left by

almost everyone who has had to exercise command since the sad day when Articles for the Government of the Navy went down into history.

It is not a purpose of this essay to level further general criticism, how­ever merited, against UCMJ.

UCMJ, however, has greatly fur­thered the diminution of “special trust and confidence” in four re­spects, all serious:

(1)     UCMJ has fostered and evert demanded a horde of specific regulations which paralyze initiative and deny individual discretion.

(2)     UCMJ has deprived individual commanding officers of con­siderable customary latitude in disciplining officer subordt' nates.

(3)     UCMJ equates commissioned officers and enlisted men wherever possible (example" allowing enlisted members on courts martial).

(4)     The underlying premise of UCMJ—as is clearly evident from the hearings which p^re' ceded its adoption—is mis­trust of the discretionary exe^f cise of authority by commanding officers, or “command interference,” as UCMJ’s lawyer (and sea law­yer) proponents repeatedly styled it. The Uniform Code of Military Justice is an em­bodied renunciation of ”sp^e' cial trust and confidence."

Officer Self Discipline and Disci­pline—Destructive of “special trust and confidence” as are the fore­going five factors, one remains which is far more fundamental. Tfi^aI factor is the capability and willing­ness of the officer corps to disci­pline itself.

In other words, to live up to the principle of noblesse oblige.

Application of noblesse oblige to the behavior of commissioned offi­cers has two prongs.

One prong is self discipline. Sen discipline should apply to every'- , body, but, as we can all see, doesn always. Simple lack of self-discipl'^,lt on the part of a given number of individual officers can be found a¹ or near the bottom of many of the restrictions—insulting by implica­tion—which I have recited. .

In other words, almost every g^:l ing, often insulting denial of “spe­cial trust and confidence” can be traced back to some failure, at son¹ :

Place, at some point of time, to *^eeP our own house in order.

The second prong of noblesse °klige is discipline—in this context, ^ttle willingness of officers to apply discipline to other officers who transgress the standards of their ^cOrps.

Discipline takes one of two forms, t'ther you apply mass restrictions and punishments against a group "hich contains some offenders (a ^Weak, evasive “remedy” which is no ^renaedy). Or you single out offend­^ers, deal with them according to heir deserts, and leave the unof- ^ending majority undisturbed.

Every one of the deplorable cita­tions with which this essay begins is ^ari example of penalizing many for derelictions of the few. Most of d^ese embarrassing restrictions ^ft°uld be unthinkable if command- ^ln8 officers always exercised the f’oral courage to punish the minor- JJT °f individuals who have brought own upon the vast unoffending ajority the shotgun restraints I de­scribed.

for example, you pay your dicss bills with checks which repeat­edly bounce, why shouldn’t you get ⁿ days under hack, or a court tfortial?

If you say you have insurance, _cⁿd then don't, why shouldn’t the demanding general recommend ■ ^u for a general court martial?

How to Restore Special  Trust and Confidence

^.Special trust and confidence,” un- ffonately, is the easiest thing in _u ^{e w}°rld to tear down. Building it P ^ls something else again, fowever difficult the job may °^Ve, it must be done. The respect _{w 4} high regard which until recently of^{re accor}ded officers as a matter bilj^C°^{Urse must restore(}d and sta- _$i ^Ze<d- The alternative is retrogres- _ti ⁿ °f the officer corps to a collec- ⁿ of high-paid clerks and diocre straw-bosses—men lack- hah'^StatUS’ ^motivation, assurance, and *,“<* authority, unschooled in co ] ^SciP*^{ine an<}d leadership. It 'ⁿ8 ^C *^laPP^en. In fact, it is happen-

^re8ain and hold “special trust ^1 confidence” will be an all-hands sen ^Utl°ⁿ—^{an ev}°fotion in some ti_m^Ses against the climate of the tion u ^^or this counter-revolu- he accomplished from outside the service through “fringe bene­fits,” pay raises, and. such, while in­dividual officers carry on as if noth­ing were really happening.

What is required can be summed up under eight headings.

Point 1: Overhaul existing law and regulations to eliminate every provi­sion which tends to reflect against or demean the status of commis­sioned officers.

Overhauling regulations will be even more work than reviewing law, at least as far as the rank and file are concerned, but because a bad regulation—unlike a bad law—can be cured by a stroke of the pen, will pay greater immediate divi­dends.

Point 2: Restore officer initiative and discretion to act.

As part of the grand review and sifting of law and regulation just proposed, we should consider an­other aspect of the problem: the increasing tendency of service regu­lations and administration to curb exercise of individual initiative by officers, commanding officers in par­ticular.

You cannot legislate against damn foolishness, human aberration, or individual wickedness. What we can do, and ought to do, is to devote less effort to composing and enforc­ing shot-gun procedures and prohi­bitions, and commensurately more effort to obtain, train, and retain a corps of officers blessed with the qualities which would obviate such regulatory harassment.

“I’m sorry, but my hands are tied by regulations,” are the saddest words ever spoken by military tongue or pen.

Point 3Officers must be indoctri­nated with the officer spirit.

This sounds like a ringing denun­ciation of sin, or a plea for im­proved weather.

If you think it over, however, you will realize that basic officer training today tends to concentrate on tech­nique and skimp on attitude. But any psychologist will assure you that an individual learns, unlearns, and relearns techniques all his life, while only once—and early—does he acquire his fundamental attitudes.

Above all, young officers should be taught the true dignity that goes with the high responsibilities they inherit. If noblesse oblige is a good motto for officers, they must not only learn well their obligations but also a little of the noblesse.

Point 4: Officer discipline must be unsparing.

Officers who transgress the code of their profession must be pun­ished. In most cases they should be gotten rid of. Misguided reluctance on the part of commanding officers to do individual hurt must give way to realization that the price we pay for “special trust and confidence” is unsparing personal accountability.

Point 5: Give privilege with responsi­bility.

It used to be unquestioned in the service scheme of tilings that officer privileges were the earned reward of heavy responsibility. Today re­sponsibilities are heavier than ever, but precious few privileges remain.

This is no plea for “fringe bene­fits.” It is rather a plea for confi­dence, for latitude of action, and for intentional gradations of privilege between executives, junior execu­tives, foremen, and the shop force— if we may couch this in the lan­guage of industry.

As long as we take the attitude that it is reprehensible to receive privilege as such, exercise of that privilege, however well earned, will be subject to logical question. What we should instead be concerned about is the exercise of privilege not well earned.

Point 6: Enlisted men must be kept out of positions which require them to supervise officers.

“Enlisted men supervise offi­cers?—Nonsense! That never hap­pens." Doesn’t it, though! An exam­ple? Only a few months ago, one service had military policemen rov­ing the Pentagon with the express purpose of jacking up officers on their appearance and uniforms—and this in public, too.

So it does happen, and is happen­ing more and more throughout the service. Every time an enlisted man is so placed that he has discretion to do anything but comply with the proper request or instructions of an officer, he is in reality supervising that officer. Every time your per­sonal check is initialled by a ship’s service attendant, he is in reality vouching for you. If an officer has to produce any sort of proof to sup­port his word or certification (like